Ignacio de Loyola Brandão


Ignácio de Loyola Brandão is a Brazilian writer, perhaps best known as the author of the dystopian science-fiction novel Zero, the story of Brazil in the 1960s under a totalitarian regime. In 2008, he was awarded the Prêmio Jabuti for his novel O Menino que Vendia Palavras.

Biography

His father was a railroad worker in Araraquara, where he was born and raised. In his teens, he wrote movie reviews for a trade paper called A Folha Ferroviária. In 1956, he relocated to São Paulo, the state capital, where he worked for Ultima Hora, a left leaning tabloid periodical.
His first book, Depois do Sol appeared in 1965. Despite the censorship that was imposed after the 1964 coup d'état, he was also able to publish his novel Bebel Que a Cidade Comeu in 1968, but the more critical and controversial Zero, completed in 1969, was first published in Europe in 1974, in an Italian translation, and was banned in Brazil until 1979.
From 1972 to 1976, he served as the first editor of , a magazine devoted to parapsychology, UFOs and ecology. He was a guest at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program during the 1981/82 season. Since 1990, he has been an editor for the Brazilian edition of Vogue magazine. In 2005, he began working for the journal O Estado de S. Paulo. In 2016, the Brazilian Academy of Letters awarded him the Prêmio Machado de Assis for his collected works. He holds seat number 37 at the Academia Paulista de Letras and was elected for the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 2019.
In addition to his literary awards, the State of São Paulo presented him with the Order of Ipiranga in 2010.

Selected bibliography

Depois do Sol Bebel Que a Cidade Comeu Zero. Trans. Ellen Watson Dentes ao Sol. Teeth Under the Sun, trans. Cristina Ferreira-Pinto Bailey Pega ele, Silêncio Não Verás País Nenhum. And Still the Earth, trans. Ellen Watson É gol O Beijo Não Vem da Boca O Ganhador O Anjo do Adeus. The Good-Bye Angel, trans. Clifford E. Landers O Anônimo Célebre. Anonymous Celebrity, trans. Nelson Vieira A Altura e a Largura do Nada O Menino que Vendia Palavras
  • ''Desta Terra Nada Vai Sobrar, A Não Ser O Vento Que Sopra Sobre Ela''

Awards and honours